Coast Guard searches for woman who disappeared from cruise ship,Florida

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Coast Guard searches for woman who disappeared from cruise ship,Florida

Canadian missing off Florida may have fallen overboard
Coast Guard searches for woman who disappeared from cruise ship

The U.S. Coast Guard is searching the waters off the east coast of Florida for a Canadian woman officials say may have fallen overboard from a cruise ship travelling from a stop in Freeport on Grand Bahama Island.

The woman's boyfriend alerted personnel with the Florida-based Celebration Cruise Line on Wednesday morning about her disappearance from the Bahamas Celebration, company president Charles Kinnear told reporters.

The captain then contacted the Coast Guard in Miami, which began a search by air and sea over an area spanning a length of about 1,400 kilometres (900 miles).

Kinnear said the man told the crew he last saw his girlfriend around 1 a.m. Wednesday. He left her at a gift shop on the ship while he went to an on-board casino before returning to their cabin.

Media reports say that when he cashed out and returned to his room, she wasn't there.

He went to sleep and raised the alarm when he awoke and found she still wasn't in their cabin, Kinnear said. Ship officials were informed of the missing woman at 8 a.m., as the vessel was about to dock at the Port of Palm Beach in Riviera Beach, Fla.

Cruise line personnel conducted two searches of the Bahamas Celebration, but found no trace of her.

Federal and local authorities have not released the woman's name.

In a news release, the Coast Guard referred to "a 47-year-old woman who fell overboard," but the president of the cruise line said: "We're still hoping for the best, that somehow she snuck off the vessel, or she is hiding somewhere."

However, WPTV-TV, the CBS station in West Palm Beach, reported the woman's passport was still in the room.

The FBI has taken over the investigation and said it has nothing further to report.

The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search for a Canadian woman reported missing from a Florida cruise ship.

The 47-year-old woman was on the Bahamas Celebration, which was travelling 135 kilometres from a stop in Freeport on Grand Bahama Island to the Port of Palm Beach, just north of West Palm Beach, Fla. She has been identified only as a Canadian and hasn't been named.

The coast guard said its search covered 18,897 square kilometres. It involved at least two coast guard aircraft, four coast guard cutters, a U.S. National Guard aircraft and air and sea rescue crews from the Bahamas

The woman's boyfriend, whose identity also hasn't been released, had alerted personnel with the Florida-based Celebration Cruise Line on Wednesday morning, as the ship was arriving in Florida, that the woman had disappeared from, company president Charles Kinnear told reporters Thursday.

Search and rescue co-ordinators at Coast Guard Sector Miami were notified by the ship's captain, and a search was begun. Crew aboard the Bahamas Celebration also searched the cruise ship for the woman without success.

Her boyfriend reported he had left her at a gift shop at about 1 a.m. while he went to an on-board casino before returning to their cabin.

Media reports say that when her boyfriend cashed out and returned to his room, she wasn't there.

The man went to sleep and raised the alarm when he woke up and found she still wasn't in their cabin, Kinnear said.

"The way he explains it is he went to the casino and got back to his room," CBS reported Kinnear as saying. "He went to bed, and she still wasn't there. And when he woke up in the morning, she still wasn't there. He walked around the ship for a while before he decided to come and tell us."

By then the ship was in port. It docked between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m.

Kinnear told reporters the ship would have been stopped and turned around to look for the woman if personnel had known earlier that she was missing.

Missing cruise passenger was in troubled relationship
Boyfriend of woman says she disappeared during Bahamas cruise

The family of a B.C. woman who vanished mysteriously from a cruise ship off the Florida coast is demanding a full investigation, CBC News has learned.

Fariba Amani, 47, of the Vancouver suburb of Port Moody, B.C., was reported missing by her boyfriend, Ramiz Golshani, 46, on the morning of Feb. 29 as the cruise they were on returned to Palm Beach, Fla.

Golshani and Amani had been travelling together on the two-day cruise between Grand Bahama Island and Palm Beach.

Amani's sisters told CBC News she was in a troubled relationship with Golshani and was poised to break it off, but decided to go on the pre-booked cruise.

One sister urged her not to go, afraid she might not make it back.

"It went through my mind right away that she wasn't coming back and that was just a gut instinct," Sahel Amani said.

Last week her fears were realized, she said.

“It’s been a nightmare, it’s been very emotionally disturbing,” said Amani's other sister, Sally Amani.

The family has been in contact with the FBI, but "the questions that we have, we're not getting answers to."

They said her presumed death is suspicious, and so far, has been too easily dismissed by the FBI.

"There is something missing. There is information that's not being told. There's something that's not being shared, and someone needs to look into it," said Sally.

Vanished without a trace
The FBI isn't commenting publicly on the case, but said previously that Golshani reported he last saw Amani on board the ship at 1 a.m. ET at the ship's duty free shop.

He reported he went to sleep and when he woke up later she still hadn’t returned to their room. He then reported Amani missing at about 8 a.m. ET as the ship returned to Palm Beach.

A search of the ship turned up no trace of the woman. Her belongings and her passport were found in her room.

The U.S. Coast Guard searched the route taken by the Bahamas Celebration but found nothing

Ramiz Golshani returned to B.C. three days ago and hasn't talked to the missing woman's family.

He said he told investigators everything he knows about the incident and they have cleared him of any suspicions.

"The FBI has all sides of my story,” Golshani said in Port Moody on Monday.

“If I had any per cent of guilt, I would not be out."

Sally Amani said family members just want the mystery cleared up.

"We want to be her voice, her eyes, her feet — everything that she can't do, we want to do for her right now,” a tearful Amani said Monday. “Because we know if the tables were turned, she would do exactly that for us."